Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and nicotinic cholinergic mechanisms of the central nervous system

John A DaniDepartment of Neuroscience, Program of Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USAAnnu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 47:699-729. 2007

Nicotine addiction and comorbidity with alcohol abuse and mental illness

John A DaniDepartment of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USANat Neurosci 8:1465-70. 2005

..For example, boosting the release from cholinergic neurons would help patients with Alzheimer's disease, and boosting the release from dopaminergic neurons would help patients with Parkinson's disease...

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and nicotinic cholinergic mechanisms of the central nervous system

John A DaniDepartment of Neuroscience, Program of Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USAAnnu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 47:699-729. 2007

..The prevailing conditions and the rate of agonist application and removal will control the degree of activation vs. desensitization. These and other factors regulate the efficacy of nicotinic agonists experimentally and physiologically...

..Loss of these synaptic mechanisms may contribute to the cognitive deficits experienced during Alzheimer's diseases, which is associated with a loss of cholinergic projections and with a decrease in the number of nicotinic receptors...

..At both muscle and neuronal cholinergic synapses, activity-dependent Ca2+ influx through nicotinic receptors produces intracellular signals that may have important roles in synaptic development, maintenance, and plasticity...

..microdialysis results after habituation, our in vivo tetrode unit recordings showed no significant difference in midbrain DA neuron activity in response to nicotine delivered by needle or cannula as long as predictive cues were avoided..

Controls of tonic and phasic dopamine transmission in the dorsal and ventral striatum

..Consistent with other summarized studies, this work indicates that the synaptic changes normally associated with learning and memory can be influenced and commandeered during the nicotine addiction process...

..Disruption of events such as those described here may contribute to the deficits associated with the decline of nicotinic cholinergic functions during degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's dementia...

Dopamine signaling differences in the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum exploited by nicotine

..Age-related differences in the excitability and the nicotine sensitivity within the midbrain dopamine system may contribute to the greater risk of nicotine addiction in adolescent animals and humans...

UBXD4, a UBX-containing protein, regulates the cell surface number and stability of alpha3-containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

..The correlated response of these two broad and dense neurotransmitter systems helps to coordinate the output of the striatum, and is likely to be an important process in sensorimotor planning and learning...

..Evidence indicates that cholinergic and dopaminergic systems work together to produce the coordinated functioning of the striatum. Loss of that cooperative activity contributes to the dysfunction underlying Parkinson's disease...

Addictive nicotine alters local circuit inhibition during the induction of in vivo hippocampal synaptic potentiation